


Imperial Assault

by BelovedFool



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Echo Base, Hoth, This fic is based on a board game, original trilogy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-28
Updated: 2019-12-29
Packaged: 2021-02-25 01:13:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 9,140
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22007518
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BelovedFool/pseuds/BelovedFool
Summary: After the battle of Echo Base, a small force of Rebels remains stranded on Hoth. Under the command of Myra Talcon, four Resistance fighters travel back to Echo, now controlled by Imperials. A human smuggler, a Rodian vigilante, a Wookiee beserker, and a Mandalorian fighter, all with their own reasons for joining the Rebellion, find themselves working more and more missions together. And behind the Imperial occupation of Hoth, the recent star General Sorin experiments with deadly new weapons for the Empire.Based on the Star Wars: Imperial Assault board game, which I'm playing through with my dad. For some reason, I got really into the characters and decided they needed to be fleshed out.Please read and review!
Comments: 1
Kudos: 1





	1. Return to Echo Base

With so many bodies packed into the outpost, even the cold of Hoth couldn’t chill the remaining Rebels. Days prior, Echo Base had been evacuated as the Imperials launched a full-scale assault. The majority of the Rebel forces had escaped or died, but those that were unable to find a ship in time had holed up in what had originally been a storage facility for extra parts, about a kilometer away. To accommodate the people, most of the parts had to be moved outside, and several survivors were put on rotating duty to ensure that the harsh snow didn’t bury them.

Whatever the Rebels had managed to carry with them as they fled from Echo Base was all they had. Lieutenant Talcon, the highest-ranking officer left, had asked for volunteers to infiltrate the now Empire-controlled Echo Base and regain enough supplies to ensure the survival of the Alliance. The motley crew she had assembled were an interesting bunch, to say the least. Jyn Odan, a human, was among many of the ex-smugglers that had joined the Rebel Alliance when Imperial restrictions made it too difficult for them to run their cargo. She was small, with straight black hair and pale brown skin. Unlike certain other smugglers Talcon had worked with, Jyn was quick to make a joke and friendly to everyone she met, although she had been careful not to reveal anything about herself even in the months she had been on Hoth with the rest of the Rebels.

Before Hoth, Talcon had never seen a Wookiee in her life, but Gaarkhan was the second she had met since then. It was hard not to compare him to Chewbacca, something that Kish, one of her corporals, had never stopped teasing her about. Gaarkhan had arrived sometime after Chewbacca and his group and had fur that was both lighter and less wavy. He had a large beard, if Wookiees differentiated between fur and beard, and possessed a voice so deep his growls had often been mistaken for speeder engines. He had agreed to come on the Echo Base raid due to a sense of duty.

Shyla Varad was the member of the group Talcon was most familiar with. The two had been stationed at the same outpost before all of the forces had been called to Echo Base. Shyla was half Mandalorian, though she did not practice the religion as intensely as her mother had. She did have her own formidable armour, which was made from carbon steel and not the beskar for which Mandalorians were known. Shyla had a dusky voice which cut through a crowd whether she wanted it to or not. She was stoic, and even those who had served with her for a long time were sometimes unsure whether their humour would be well-received. She was loyal, though, and a fierce friend.

The final member of the party, Vinto Hreeda, didn’t look like he should be one of the ones the Rebels were fighting alongside. A self-proclaimed vigilante, his most prominent feature wasn’t the large black eyes or the antenna that made Rodians the target of many interesting slurs, but the deep scar that crossed his face. It ran from his left antenna, which was missing, to the right side of his jaw and made the rest of the scars that were visible when his arms or neck were exposed seem inconsequential. No one had asked about it, and he hadn’t volunteered the information. Talcon had never heard good things about Rodians, and Vinto hadn’t proven false any rumours yet—but he hadn’t confirmed them, either.

Now, Talcon was leading the group across the wasteland. They had brought an old speeder along; not big enough to carry all of them and not fast enough to beat their walking speed, but if they found supplies they would need something to carry them. If it weren’t for the portable navcomputer, Talcon never would have known that Echo Base lay just over the next ridge. The group would have to travel through the trench-littered battlefield first, a grim sight for even the most seasoned of soldiers. Behind her, she heard Kish stammer, “I can’t feel my toes anymore. I don’t know how much further I can go.”

“Keep moving those legs, soldier,” Talcon encouraged him. Something that sounded suspiciously like a laugh came from Gaarkhan. Talcon was sure they all envied him his thick coat. Coming to a stop, she beckoned at Shyla, coming up just behind Kish. “Take point for a while,” she said, and Shyla nodded without slowing her stride. Gaarkhan, Vinto, and Jyn followed her, the latter throwing Kish a reassuring wink, which made him smile a bit beneath his misery. Talcon put a hand on his shoulder. “We’re nearly at the trench line,” she said, no longer speaking to him in the voice of his superior, but as his friend. “We might be able to find a heater there to thaw us out a bit.”

“If the Imps haven’t busted them all,” Kish lamented, but he seemed to perk up a bit. “Damn Snowtroopers have probably never seen a heater in years.”

A shout from Vinto cut off Talcon’s reply. As the group had approached the old trenches, several supply crates had become apparent sticking out of the snow. As Talcon approached, Jyn threw her a triumphant smile.

“Let’s see what’s in those—” Talcon began, but the telltale sound of a blaster rifle and the hiss of an energy bolt melting the snow stopped her short. Inside the trenches, the glistening helmets of Imperial Snowtroopers were barely perceptible against the snow. Seconds later, the far more conspicuous black-and-white of standard-issue Stormtroopers could be seen rising up to shoot. Under a crashed speeder to the right, a probe droid stretched out its appendages and beeped a warning. It seemed since the attack, the Imperials had posted a reinforced guard on the old Rebel base.

Talcon had expected some resistance, but if this was the squad that was guarding the trenches, she could hardly imagine the opposition they would face inside. The feeling of determination mixed with despair that had become common among Rebel soldiers welled up inside her. She looked at the Wookiee warrior beside her as the rest of the group readied their weapons. “Take this,” she said, rummaging around in a pocket to produce a datachip. As she pressed it into his hand, she continued, “If something happens to me, you can find Haven here. Tell them Myra sent you.” Talcon only hoped that her old friend Benex would be willing to play host to fighters of a war she had never supported.

Gaarkhan never asked for an explanation, nor would Talcon have had time to give him one. He growled his understanding and tucked the datachip into the pouch at his side before unslinging the huge vibroaxe from his back.

Despite their differences, the group worked well together. Jyn ran across the snow towards the old speeder, keeping her head down to avoid fire from the Troopers. They all knew the danger of probe droids, who could explode at unpredictable times and kill anyone around them. She pressed her back to one of the abandoned storage crates and fired a bolt through a gap in the speeder wreckage into the droid’s central hub.

Shyla, meanwhile, had run to the right. As she approached the troopers, she fired a cable from her left wrist, snagging the closest and dragging him towards her. A slice with her blade left a deep gash across his armour, the blackened skin visible underneath. Gaarkhan, for his part, charged past Shyla to engage a Snowtrooper. It only took one swipe from his axe to end the unfortunate soldier, who had been far too intimidated by the Wookiee’s approach to fire. A well-placed shot from Kish ended the trooper Shyla had wounded, while Talcon scored a hit on one further away.

Jyn’s shot hadn’t destroyed the probe droid. Red lights flashed over it and its beeping became frantic. “It’s gonna blow!” she warned. Doubtful that she could make it to a safer place before that happened, she stayed in the relative safety of the wreckage.

“It’s not.” Vinto was closer behind her than she had thought. His sprint over to the crate had left him out of breath, but he remained standing as he fired nearly into the hole Jyn had left. The droid short circuited and dropped to the ground, creating a small explosion where it landed—nothing like what would have happened had it detonated of its own accord. Unconcerned, Vinto opened the crate and made a sound of approval when he pulled a medpac out. Jyn couldn’t see what else was in the crate, but none of it appeared to interest the Rodian.

“Get to that laser turret!” Talcon called. She had a good eye. Shyla looked up to see a half-buried turret in the place where two trenches crossed. There were scorch marks along its casing, but the gun itself seemed undamaged. “If we can get that thing to work, these troopers won’t stand a chance!” As Shyla prepared to move, however, a snowbank on the far side of the trenches shivered and was mowed down by a huge tank. The helmet of a Snowtrooper was visible, but amidst the heavy armour covering the tank would be impossible to hit.

“That’s an SC2-M,” said Kish, dread apparent in his voice. These very tanks had caused grief for the Rebel infantry during the defense of Echo Base. “Something’s different about it, though.”

“Across the battlefield, Jyn looked up over the crate at Vinto. “Look at the size of those repulsor cannons,” she commented. “I bet you could take out a Rancor with those.”

“We’re about to find out,” Vinto replied grimly.

Behind the tank, an Imperial officer crested the ridge. “Finally! A test for General Sorin’s new tank! Driver, destroy them!” He wore no outdoor gear, which meant he had probably come from inside Echo Base when he had heard blaster fire.

Unconcerned by or perhaps even unaware of the tank, Gaarkhan let his rage carry him from one Stormtrooper to another. He seemed unstoppable, and even the bolts that grazed him appeared to do nothing more than singe his fur. By the time he had finished his bellow, the two remaining Snowtroopers looked uneasily between their comrades’ corpses and each other. Gaarkhan looked up, breathing heavily, as the tank began to roll across the snow. It turned slowly, as if its driver was aware there was nothing anyone could do to stop it, and fired the repulsor cannons.

Two bolts as long as a human was tall streaked towards the speeder. Though they hit the snow, their intense heat and force kicked up a wave of it that melted and settled on both Jyn and Vinto. Jyn yelped as the boiling water burned her skin and heard Vinto hiss in pain behind her. He dropped to one knee on the other side of the crate, hoping it would shield him from the tank’s next shot. “Good thing there’s a Stormtrooper manning those guns, or we would have been vapourized,” he commented humourlessly.

Jyn chuckled as she buried her hands in the snow. She gritted her teeth against the biting cold, not sure it was any better than the burns she was using it against. “For all the grief they cause us, they have to be good for something.”

A blaster bolt bounced off of Shyla’s armour, causing her to grunt at the impact. She turned and cut down the trooper that had shot at her before running for the turret. She was able to reach it and grab the controls, but a shot from the remaining trooper hit her point blank in the shoulder and knocked her aside. As one, Kish and Talcon fired at the trooper’s exposed back and sent him sprawling to the snow, smoking.

“Stop her!” the commander’s gruff voice roared across the battlefield. With a horrible noise of crunching snow, the tank turned towards the turret and began to advance. The officer himself drew a blaster pistol and darted around the tank. Shyla lost sight of him momentarily, until he appeared on her far-right side and fired. The bolt bounced off the turret’s armour and sped away as Shyla wedged herself into the divot where the control panel was situated, heart racing.

Jyn took a moment to catch her breath, one she would not have if there had been no other choice. But dazed as she was, she would be of no help to her allies. When she opened her eyes, she dared a quick look out over the speeder and fired at the officer. As far as she knew, troopers were useless with no one directing them. The bolt went wide, the distance far too long for a pistol to make an accurate shot. Vinto had another idea: the tank would be useless with no driver inside. And among the chaos of the battle, the officer would hardly have time to pull the armoured corpse out to take control of the tank himself. Vinto took far longer to aim than he was comfortable with, but even then the shot bounced harmlessly off the front of the tank. He dropped back down behind the crate.

“Shyla’s right by that turret,” he spoke quickly through the crate. “We need to cover her in order to take out the tank.”

“That’s…gonna be a problem,” said Jyn. As she watched through a gap in the speeder wreckage, Shyla fired the turret at the tank, heedless of the officer she had now exposed her right side to. The thick bolts, which might normally have done some damage, fizzled as they came into contact with a blue energy field which manifested just to deflect them. When the bolts had been deflected, the field shimmered back into invisibility. Jyn heard Shyla curse, and she ran for cover as the officer rounded the turret to get a clearer shot at her.

Satisfied that the officer could handle Shyla, the tank’s driver turned its turrets back towards the busted speeder. This time, he fired at the vehicle itself, perhaps hoping to blow it up and destroy the two Rebels behind it at the same time. The speeder, which had been blown up during the initial battle for Echo Base, had nothing left to detonate. The bolts bounced off of it, one grazing Vinto’s arm and the other ricocheting into Jyn’s side. She cried out in agony.

Over the ridge from which the officer and the tank had come, more shouts could be heard. Another group of Snowtroopers crested the ridge and took position on the battlefield. Talcon and Kish, the only two dressed in Rebel uniforms, were their first targets. Talcon ducked as the blaster bolts whizzed over her head, but an unfortunate Kish was struck in the chest with an uncharacteristically good shot. He flew backwards about a metre and landed in the snow, coughing. By the time Talcon got to his side, the coughing had stopped—and his breathing along with it. Her reckless rush to him cost her a shot in the leg, but she returned fire and was able to hit the offending trooper in the non-dominant arm before returning to cover.

Vinto reached around the crate to press the medpac he had looted into Jyn’s hands. Not waiting to see if she was well enough to use it, he stood and fired at one of the troopers, hoping to draw some of their fire away from Talcon. His shot bounced off the trooper’s helmet, causing him to stagger but suffer no serious harm.

Jyn’s hands applied the medpac by instinct. The wound in her side numbed and began to close. As her eyes focused again, she picked out something strange in a snowbank between herself and the tank. What she had originally thought were pieces of scrap metal from the battle were actually pieces of boulder peeking out from among their covering of snow. If the entire snowbank was made of boulders, perhaps the topmost ones could be pushed down the rest of the bank. Jyn’s brow furrowed as she thought back to something she had heard once: energy shields were only effective against fast moving, energy-based objects. She had to stand up to shout.

“Shyla! We have to—” She stopped. The troopers could hear as well as her allies could. She looked behind her instead. “We have to get her to lead the tank over here,” she told Vinto. “One of us can send those boulders down to crush it.”

Vinto looked over at the boulders and his antenna twisted skeptically. “I can’t move those,” he said. “They look like they’re frozen in place.”

“I bet Gaarkhan can move them,” said Jyn, but Vinto was already looking elsewhere. It was always hard to tell where exactly a Rodian was looking, but Vinto blinked once at the speeder the two were hiding behind. “I think…” he leaned up and fiddled with the exposed control panel. A shot flew over his bent form where his shoulder had been a second earlier. Satisfied, he dropped back down. “The tow cable’s still operational,” he said.

“You think it’ll hold that thing?” Jyn was incredulous.

“This is the same model as the one whose tow cable tripped up an AT-AT,” Vinto said confidently. It was the most upbeat Jyn had ever heard him. “We need to make sure someone is there as soon as that thing’s in position, though. It’ll be close enough to take us out.” He stood up briefly to call out “Gaarkhan!”

The Wookiee looked up for just a moment and roared out an irritated _Not now!_ His fur was smoking in multiple places, and one wound on his forearm seemed to have reached the skin, but he didn’t appear hindered as he returned to the task at hand. Two Snowtroopers were near him, trying to circle around to flank him. Gaarkhan spun and lunged to try both to hit them and avoid their fire. He was only half successful; among his dodging, his strikes weren’t nearly as powerful. They hurt the troopers, but didn’t take them out.

From the other side of the field, a little way away from where the Rebels had entered the scene, a patrolling probe droid floated into view of the battle. Its lights began flashing immediately and it drifted towards Talcon, who was busy firing at the officer. Her blaster hit and sent him staggering backwards into the snow. She expected him to get up, but he didn’t.

Shyla, meanwhile, had reached the pile of boulders and crouched near the side of it, facing Jyn by the speeder. Another crate, halfway hidden behind the pile, was to her right. They were still a good three metres apart, but Shyla was safe from the tank and the troopers’ fire in her position.

“Can you move those?” Jyn called to her. Shyla turned to consider the pile.

“Probably,” she replied.

“Probably?” said Vinto.

“We’re gonna pull the tank over here,” Jyn told her. “You’re gonna need to send those rocks down onto it.”

Shyla nodded. “If I use explosives to help, I can do it.” She checked her belt. “I’ve got one left. After Echo Base I nearly ran out of everything.”

“Check what’s in that crate while I snag the tank,” Jyn said. Vinto caught sight of her broad grin as she reached up towards the control panel. “Those Imps are never going to see this coming.”

The tank was concentrating fire near Gaarkhan, but though its damage was deadly, its precision was lacking. Unable to hit him without damaging its fellow troopers, the most the driver could do was send hot blasts of snow towards the Wookiee. Gaarkhan’s teeth were bared against the pain, but he would allow it to affect him later, after the battle.

The magnetic end of the tow cable hit the side of the tank with a loud _thunk_ , causing the driver to jump. Three large claws deployed from its head to pierce the tank’s armour and secure the tow cable’s hold. Due to the speeder’s condition, the machinery was clunky, and the cable moved in small jerks as the speeder tried to pull it and its immense burden back.

Manning the tow cable was a one-person job. With the tank momentarily occupied, Vinto felt safe enough to stand and see who needed covering. Like the tank, he was hesitant about firing into Gaarkhan’s area. He was confident in his ability to thread the needle, so to speak, but the Wookiee was moving so erratically it was hard to predict where he might be from one second to the next. Instead, Vinto shot to his right at the probe droid that had now nearly reached Talcon. His first bolt hit it a glancing blow, which caused it to rotate its hub and locate the threat. When it headed towards him, it was moving much faster. He fired a second shot and blew out one side of the droid. It was still coming, though, and if it reached him it would blow him up along with Jyn and the tow cable. Out of the corner of his eye he saw another officer crest the ridge.

Gaarkhan saw the officer, too. The man ran towards his downed comrade. He crouched only briefly to check for a lifebeat and presumably found nothing, because he straightened coldly and drew his blaster. “A full promotion to the one who destroys these Rebels!” he called. “I shall arrange it with General Sorin personally!”

At this, the Snowtroopers seemed to triple their efforts. All three fired at Gaarkhan. Only one hit, streaking across his calf. With a roar that could probably be heard all the way back at the supply outpost, Gaarkhan sliced the trooper nearest to him in half. He turned and saw the second drop his gun, but the axe was already on its way down. Both corpses fell to the snow, and the Wookiee set his sights on the third. However, movement to his right alerted him to the officer moving into his area.

Gaarkhan was ready to defend, but the man ignored him, instead firing straight at the wounded Talcon. She was leaning against a twisted piece of wreckage, favouring her injured leg while she tried to shoot one-handed into the fray. The officer’s shot hit her in the ribs and knocked her to her knees. There was no cry, but instead she gasped faintly, “Find…haven…” before falling face-first to the snow.

Inside the crate, Shyla had found two flashbombs. They were nowhere near as potent as the frag on her belt, but against troopers and commanders they might do fine. She clipped them on and turned in alarm as she heard Gaarkhan roar. She saw him down the first trooper, and then watched in horror as the officer killed Lieutenant Talcon. She began to move to help, but Jyn stopped her.

“Shyla, we need you here to take out that tank!”

“Gaarkhan’s alone out there!” Shyla called back.

Vinto swore, although only Jyn could hear it. He fired another two shots, which finished the droid off moments before it got into detonation range. Jyn gave Shyla a reassuring smile. “He’s got Vin,” she remarked.

“Vin?” Shyla said to herself. She looked at the heavily scarred vigilante and deemed it entirely inappropriate to give him a nickname. There was hardly any time to ponder it, though, as the remaining officer belted out a command and the tank fired once towards the speeder and once towards Shyla, who was now partially exposed. The first bolt careened into the speeder, showering Jyn was sparks. She shouted, but didn’t pull away from the controls. The second bolt hit Shyla between the shoulderblades. She could feel its heat through her armour and suspected the carbon steel had been seriously damaged. Another shot like that would kill her for sure. She began to turn and ready to brace herself against the boulders, but the slightest movement of her arms sent pain from the new wound lancing through her. She fell back, gasping. The repulsor wound seemed to heighten all her other pains as well, including that of the whipping wind across her face. Shyla’s eyes met the horizon, where the sun was rapidly sinking below the surface. It would be unbearably cold soon.

Vinto could feel it too. Rodians were already far more susceptible to cold than their hotter-blooded companions, and his fingers had slowly been becoming stiff and numb. It made it difficult to fire properly, and when his shot went wide he shook out his hand in frustration.

Jyn’s hands had been numb ever since she had stuck them in the snow, but she relied on her vision to make sure she was pushing the right buttons. The control panel made occasional popping noises, and switches didn’t stay where she put them. It was a fight to drag the tank over, but it was nearly in position.

The last Snowtrooper turned and ran. It seemed like he was trying to get closer to the tank and rely on its protection. Gaarkhan gave chase, vaulting over an overturned crate near the laser turret to gain on the trooper. He launched himself at the trooper axe-first, but the distance was still a bit too far and the axe-head hit the snow right behind the trooper’s heel.

The officer disappeared into one of the trenches. From behind the speeder, there was no way to tell where he was headed. One thing Vinto hated most was being taken by surprise, so he abandoned his cover and darted out towards where Kish had fallen. As he rounded another pile of debris, he saw the officer coming the same way. Both men froze, guns trained on each other.

Finally, the tow cable gave a grand lurch and dragged the tank into position. “That’s more like it!” said Jyn, giving the panel a congratulatory smack. Seeing that Jyn had stopped trying to tow him, the driver of the tank looked around in a panic. He couldn’t see any threat, so he readied his guns to shoot. Gaarkhan drove his axe into the final trooper’s back before turning towards the tank. Were it not for Shyla standing where she was, he would never have known just how opportune a position it was in. He knew there was nothing the tank could do to avoid its fate now, though, so he cheered loudly, his teeth bared in a grin now. He dashed back towards the turret, hoping to take cover from the officer he thought was still in place to fire at him.

By Gaarkhan’s cheer, Shyla knew the tank was in place. She could hardly move, but to delay would be to throw away all the effort the group had spent. She had to twist to pull a medpac from her belt, causing her vision to swim with black spots. She felt sick, and her head reeled so hard that she nearly fell backwards. Shyla thought she would drop the medpac in the snow, but somehow managed to apply it. The pain did not subside, but a surge of resistance returned to her, as did her consciousness. She was able to stand against the agony and wedge the frag grenade from her belt into a gap between the rocks. The resulting explosion was underwhelming, but it cracked the ice sticking the rocks. Shyla had stood back, and upon closing the gap between herself and the rocks, she threw her entire body against them to send one rolling down; there was no way to do it painlessly. As it went, the other rocks it had been supporting or holding back began to fall, until the entire hill slid down overtop of the tank, crushing the driver and battering the vehicle beyond further use. Shyla sat down hard in the snow.

The officer cast a panicked glance at the avalanche burying the tank. Without a superweapon to aid him, he had no chance in the fight. He fired once at Vinto’s hand and turned to flee. Vinto had to move quickly to avoid losing the hand and was unable to fire a returning shot until the officer was too far away. He tried anyways, but only hit the man in the foot, slowing him down.

Seeing that the officer was fleeing, Gaarkhan made his way back to and began rummaging through the crate he had vaulted in an attempt to find something to help the two fallen Rebels. He held out hope they were still alive; even the slightest heartbeat would be enough, if he could find a bacta infuser or the like in one of these crates. The first one held only some credits and a smoke bomb, but there was a second a little way away, nearly completely covered with snow.

Shyla slowly picked her way down towards Gaarkhan. The turret seemed a good place to regroup. She saw Vinto’s pursuit of the officer and considered trying to throw one of the flashbombs, but with her injury, the distance, and the speed at which the two were moving, she wasn’t sure she’d do anything but help the officer.

Jyn edged out from the speeder wreckage and came around the other way, taking the same route Vin had when he had given chase. She was just in time to see the officer attempt an evasive maneuver, stopping short and throwing himself to the side. He performed a roll and tried to sweep Vinto’s legs out from under him. The Rodian had anticipated the move, though, and jumped back out of the way. When the officer stood up from his roll, Vin’s pistol was pressed to the side of his head.

Gaarkhan looked up in alarm. He cautioned a loud _Wait!_ and saw Vinto’s bulbous eyes narrow even from where he was. If anyone would know anything about this General Sorin, it would be the officer, he tried to explain. He was elbow-deep in the crate still and returned to his frantic search.

Jyn skidded to a halt a few metres away. “Oh, Vin wants to shoot him so bad…” she called to Gaarkhan, since he was wasn’t paying attention anymore.

“I’m gonna kriffing shoot him,” Vinto replied.

A _Just wait_ growl sounded, but the officer took his chance to grab Vinto’s wrist and yank it wide of his body. Vinto’s reactionary shot sailed harmlessly past his head and he made a shot of his own right into the Rodian’s stomach. Vinto fell to all fours and the officer sped off, hoping to make use of the surprise to get far enough away that the Rebels would never catch him.

Gaarkhan finally came across what he was looking for, and he triumphantly let his teammates know. His shout overlapped with the officer’s shot and he cried out in horror as he saw Vinto fall.

Vinto had no choice. He reached into one of the pockets inside his jacket to pull out his emergency medpac. It was the last one the group had, and he personally had carried this one around for years. He always maintained that as long as he had it, there was still a way to get out of a sticky situation. He applied it to his stomach even as he stood. His blaster had landed about a metre away, and when he stooped to pick it up he fell to his knees again. That didn’t stop him. He was aware that Shyla had started running towards the officer, but Vinto had a head start and a ranged weapon. He staggered through the snow. The officer, hearing his laborious trek, turned incredulously and stared open-mouthed. The pause was long enough for Vinto to get in range. The officer watched it happen but seemed incapable of believing it, like it was happening to someone else. At the last moment, he turned to flee once more, but Vin’s shot hit him between the legs, streaking up into his abdomen. The officer collapsed with a groan.

Shyla was able to catch up to Vinto, so Jyn ran towards Kish, who was closest to her. Gaarkhan headed towards Talcon with his newfound medical supplies. Even before she got to him, Jyn could see that Kish was long gone. She shook her head sadly and joined Gaarkhan, who had turned Talcon over and was kneeling in the snow. A large wound bled on her side, and Gaarkhan was trying in vain to slow the blood flow before sealing the wound. Talcon pushed his hand away. “It’s…too late…for me,” she gasped. As Jyn knelt by her other side, Talcon grabbed her arm with a bloody hand. Compared to the snow and the cold metal of her gun, it was unpleasantly hot.

“Remember,” Talcon continued, seeming to be speaking to both Jyn and Gaarkhan without looking at either of them, “haven…Tell Benex I…I…” The word gurgled in her throat and she stilled. Jyn looked sadly at her, and then checked over her shoulder to see if Vinto had died as well. Thankfully, he had gotten to his feet and was walking—albeit slowly—over to the crushed tank with Shyla.

“Whoever this general is, it sounds like he has more of these planned,” said Shyla. She ran her hands over the parts of the tank that were visible, but there wasn’t much to see now that it had been destroyed.

“We got lucky this time,” Vinto said, his voice heavily strained. “If the general has more, we need to find a better way to fight them.”

“Well, we won’t find it here,” Shyla replied bluntly.

Vinto pursed his snout. That wasn’t his fault. “So we get off this snowball,” he retorted sharply.

Gaarkhan, who was approaching with Jyn and had heard the last bit of conversation, grunted moodily.

“You know who _does_ have one, I bet?” Jyn asked, raising her eyebrows at him. “These guys.” She gestured at the bodies. “They’re reinforcement patrols, they have to have flown here.”

Gaarkhan nodded, newly emboldened by the suggestion. The only place the Imperials would be able to keep a shuttle big enough for all those troops was inside Echo Base. His teammates seemed to agree.

“Okay,” said Vinto, breathily. “We get the rest of what’s in these crates back to the outpost. I saw some rations when I was rummaging around in there, and I don't think the Imps got our speeder. Then we rest up—” He hissed and pressed a hand to his stomach.

“And we go steal that shuttle.” Shyla nodded and put an arm around Vinto’s waist to steady him, ignoring his antenna twitching at the unexpected contact. Now that the adrenaline from the battle was dying down, she needed the support herself. She nodded grimly. “We have no other choice. That’s our only hope.”


	2. Into the Trenches

No one needed to ask where Talcon and Kish were. The group had moved quickly to load the crates they had found onto the speeder, but the bodies they hadn’t recovered. Shyla, Jyn, and Vinto were rushed to the improvised medical bay, but Gaarkhan still stood strongly and his wounds were mostly hidden. He told Jyn all he needed was some rest as they separated.

Jyn was the first to fully recover. She overheard one of the doctors talking to a passing Alliance member about a sealed-off room that had finally been opened. “They found weapons in there, better than standard gear. Mods too. No one knows how it got there. Maybe we were holding things for a smuggler in exchange for their help.”

“You said there’s new gear around?” Jyn had put her jacket on over the soft grey clothes that had been issued by medbay, just so she didn’t look like an invalid. The Twi’lek who had been speaking turned towards her.

“Yeah…” Eyeing her jacket insignia, he gave her a significant look. “Why? You know the guy who was smuggling them?”

“Nope. But I thought maybe I could find someone to buy them off of.”

The Twi’lek and his companion, a Mon Calamari, exchanged glances. “Well, I’m the one that got the door open,” said the Mon Calamari. “I was an engineer back at Echo Base, and we had to seal off doors to keep out Imperial raids. Getting them open was a challenge, but I got good at it.”

“That’s fair, that’s fair.” Jyn nodded amiably. “My friends and I are the ones who found the supply crates, so we’ll pay you with the credits from in there.”

“Those belong to the whole Alliance!” the Twi’lek sputtered.

“What, because they were on one of our bases?” Jyn replied. “Okay, you can have an even share of the credits, and we get an even share of that gear.”

The two exchanged another glance, but the Mon Calamari relented. “Fine, I’ll sell to you. Come on, I’ll take you to where I found them.”

“My money better be going to a good cause,” Jyn joked. “You are going to use it to benefit the whole Alliance, right?”

It had been a fight for Shyla to convince the medics not to put her in the bacta tank. She didn’t follow the rule some stricter sects of Mandalorians did, where they were never allowed to show their faces to anyone, but her body she still didn’t display. When the medics did heal her, she insisted only one of them tend to her, and that a curtain was put around the bed. When she was no longer worried they would go against her wishes, Shyla was able to get some much-needed sleep.

Shyla awoke sore, but well-rested. She could tell even before looking that she had healed significantly and that there had been no complications. Her muscles were sore from inactivity as she first sat, and then stood. Stretching re-awoke the pain from her wounds, but compared to how much she had been suffering on the battlefield, this was nothing. Her armour sat inside the ring of the curtain, untouched since she had taken it off herself. It would take a lot of maintenance to get it in working order again, but the responsibility was part of the oath that accompanied the acceptance of the armour. Someone had brought clothes from her chambers, so Shyla dressed as quickly as she could: a long-sleeved brown shirt with reinforced elbow- and shoulder-patches, as well as a double-thick pair of black trousers. Fingerless leather gloves and heavy black boots completed the outfit.

Much to her chagrin, Shyla was still too weak to carry her entire armful of armour. She borrowed the services of a maintenance droid to wheel the bulk of it to the big central room where the Rebels conducted their daily business and are their meals. Empty crates and powered-down speeders served as seating and the gentle hum of conversation filled the air. No eyes followed Shyla, and no muttering took place as she passed. Asking the droid to bring her the tools she needed, Shyla looked for a place to sit. She had barely settled in the floorspace where the corners of two crates touched when she saw Gaarkhan enter.

The Wookiee was covered in bandages, but they were all expertly and tightly wrapped. Shyla hadn’t seen him in the medbay, but she had been hidden by the curtain for a large portion of her stay. She hailed Gaarkhan and he headed towards her with a growl of recognition.

“You took a lot of hits out there,” Shyla said.

Gaarkhan shrugged. They were healing now, so obviously he hadn’t taken too many.

“Guess so,” Shyla agreed. The droid came zipping back and she removed the supplies from its tray so it could move on to other tasks.

Gaarkhan asked if he could sit on one of the crates, and Shyla nodded. It put her on eye-level with his legs and she could see the efficient pattern in which the bandages overlapped. “You have experience in med training?”

Gaarkhan nodded. During his training, he had been instructed in battlefield medicine. Everyone in his city had been, since it was considered selfsh to think only of offense in battle. Warriors had to work as a unit, and that meant supporting downed comrades as well.

“That’s good. My mother used to tell me about the Mandalorian battle-code too.” Shyla’s hands moved carefully over her armour. As she suspected, there were many things to fix. “You’re never supposed to abandon your people, but the code also asks that if it’ll ensure everyone else’s survival, that you sacrifice yourself.”

With a shake of his head, Gaarkhan explained that Wookiee warriors left no one behind, even the dead. That was why their training allowed them to fight defensively as well as in their preferred style.

The tiniest smile crossed Shyla’s face. “Well, I’ll count on you to drag me out if I’m too stubborn not to sacrifice myself, then.”

Gaarkhan laughed.

Shyla looked up from a bit of soldering. The fluorescent lights glinted off Gaarkhan’s pauldrons and made her squint. “Your armour: is it—oh, titanium.” She paused. “Why do you wear them? A chestplate might be—”

Gaarkhan cut her off with a rumble. He reached up to remove his left shoulderpad, revealing a patch of bald skin, thick with white scarring. He told her his fur offered no protection for the spot.

Shyla nodded. “I understand.” She returned to her work, and Gaarkhan sat with her. After the encounter with the tank and seeing two of their companions die, the company was a welcome reminder that no one was in this fight alone.

“I heard Jyn up and about,” Shyla mentioned after a long silence. “I’m not sure about Vinto, though.”

Gaarkhan hadn’t been to the medbay, so he didn’t know either.

Vinto, as it happened, hadn’t refused the bacta tank. He had been in medbay as long as Shyla had, but with the limited space the old storage facility offered, the tank was located in a corner and was often behind the medical carts. He had been fighting consciousness for about a day and a half, on top of the first day he had spent completely sedated. The rebreather wasn’t made for his face shape, so it pressed uncomfortably against his snout. The water was a pleasant temperature, though, and Vinto’s warmed blood sped up his healing process. There was an old medical droid in the corner directly across from him, seated on a drawer unit and leaning against the wall. Its legs were missing, but its eyes were alight. Vinto kicked at the plexi and watched in irritation as the droid’s head slowly jerked around, looking for the source of the sound. When it finally noticed him, it raised a comm to its face and signalled to him with its free hand. Someone would be there soon to let him out.

Even after he emerged, Vinto still walked laboriously. He determined he would need a few more days to heal fully, but it was better than staying in medbay any longer, especially confined to the tank. He ran into Shyla in the hallway. Her armour glinted brightly, as if she had just polished it. As he got closer, he could smell the supplies she had used.

“You’re still hurt,” Shyla said.

“I’m fine. I’d rather walk around for two days than float for another one.”

Shyla nodded. “Jyn found me and Gaarkhan in the main room. She said something about a supply dealer.”  
“Here?”

“Yeah. I don’t know what happened, exactly. She’s excited about her new blaster, though. I took a look, but I didn’t see anything I wanted.”

Vinto didn’t think there would be anything he wanted either. “Okay. Thanks.” He started to walk past her, but Shyla caught his shoulder.

“Hey. Don’t feel bad for shooting that officer. There’ll be other Imps to question.”

Vinto blinked slowly. “I don’t.” Shyla let him go.

As soon as he entered the big room, Jyn ran up to him, Gaarkhan following slowly behind. “Hey, you’re alive! Check it out. DH-17.” She brandished her new gun in such a way that he couldn’t have gotten a good look at it even if he had wanted to. “All they’ve got left over there is a DL-44, but even that’s better than that hunk of scrap you’re carrying around.”

Vin put a protective hand over his holster. “My blaster’s fine.”

“And wouldn’t you know it, there was some armour in one of the crates our credits were in. Well, the supply crates. I figured Shyla might want it, but she doesn’t want to give up her blue stuff. I think it’s a Mando thing. It won’t fit Gaarkhan.”

Gaarkhan grumbled. Wearing metal armour would be far too hot, anyways.

“I left it over there with the rest of my stuff.” Jyn gestured further into the room. Vinto looked past her.

“You sure no one’s gonna take it?” he asked.

“Not unless _they_ want to see my new gun,” Jyn said with a wide grin. “Come check out the stuff for sale.”

Vinto shrugged. “Alright.” As they passed Jyn’s stuff, Gaarkhan sat down next to it and began to attach some kind of mod to his axe haft.

“Check it out.” Jyn gestured to the spread as if she was the one selling it. “All this stuff was sealed away. There’s more in that room, but no one’s dragged it all out yet. They’re thinking of converting it to a full-on armoury.”

“We need more room to sleep,” Vinto pointed out, but he perused the equipment that was laid out on top of the crates it had come in. Like Jyn said, there was another blaster pistol; there were a couple of mods as well, but they all looked too new to fit his blaster. The melee weapons, he ignored. “I’m good,” he told the Mon Calamari watching him intently.

Jyn followed him as he walked away. “You’ve got a thing for that blaster. Oh, wait, is it one of those ones that’s made special for Rodians?”

Vinto pulled the blaster out of his holster and handed it to her wordlessly. She turned it around in her hands and sounded disappointed when she handed it back. “It’s just a blaster.”

“Yeah.”

“It’s still a piece of junk,” she teased.

“Maybe,” Vinto admitted, “but I’m used to it.”

“So you can use human weapons!” She changed the subject.

“Most people can. Humans just can’t use Rodian weapons very well.” They reached Gaarkhan and the rest of Jyn’s stuff and she sat backwards in a chair to talk to him.

“’Cause of your fingers.” She wiggled her own at him. “Can you stick them to me?” She pulled up a sleeve and offered him her bared arm.

Vin blinked in a way that made Jyn feel very stupid. “No,” he said.

Gaarkhan snorted. He asked Jyn if she would cry on Vinto.

“What? No, that’s weird.” Jyn chuckled. “Okay, point taken.” She retracted her arm. “I’m gonna go find Shyla. I need her to teach me how to put this armour on.”

Gaarkhan offered to show her.

“Well, it’s a lot more like Shyla’s…” Jyn patted the Wookiee on the arm. “No offense, but if I’m gonna have one of you two help me get dressed, it’s gonna be the beefy warrior lady.”

“Gaarkhan’s beefy,” Vinto said.

Jyn gave him an exasperated look. “Just…” She shook her head. “Nevermind.” She gathered up her armour and headed back towards the hallway.

Gaarkhan chuckled to himself. Vinto looked at him uncomfortably. He had never really learned Wookiee, only picked up bits and pieces from context when he had to run missions with certain contacts of contacts. And in those cases, he always had someone around who could understand it properly. He was pretty sure that had been the case with Jyn and Shyla around too: Jyn for sure. His antenna rotated nervously.

Gaarkhan had a similar problem. It didn’t help that Basic was made up of sounds that Wookiees couldn’t emulate, but when Vinto spoke it, it sounded like his teeth got in the way of his tongue. Gaarkhan didn’t even know if Rodians had teeth. If not, he had no idea why Vin’s Basic sounded so weird. He settled for maintaining a welcoming presence but concentrating on attaching his new high-impact guard to his axe.

“These supplies won’t last very long,” said Vinto.

Gaarkhan was quiet.

“We’re probably going to have to make a run for more. Inside Echo this time.”

The Wookiee made a grunt of agreement. There was no telling what was inside there.

“Well,” Vinto thought aloud. He was pretty sure he had recognized the warning in Gaarkhan’s tone. “They didn’t send that many reinforcements out to the trenches. Maybe they’re working in low numbers.”

Gaarkhan hesitated a moment, and then nodded. They had to get access to a ship anyways, otherwise they would all die out here eventually.

Vinto looked up at the ceiling. “The others will probably come back for us eventually, but there’s no way to tell whether it’ll be soon enough.”

Gaarkhan growled. Vin looked at him in alarm and took a small step away, not recognizing that the growl wasn’t meant for him. “I’ll leave you to it.”

It took a few days for Jyn to get used to moving around in her new armour. She nearly gave up on it a couple of times due to its weight; she might have if there had been no one around to see her do it. By that time, Vinto and Gaarkhan had fully healed as well. No one else volunteered to go out for another supply run. The death of their leader had sapped their morale. There were several different groups that were trying escape strategies: one was attempting to expand the range on the comms; another was reinforcing some speeders to go out and hunt for spare parts from wreckages, where there would be no Imperials. Shyla maintained that infiltrating Echo Base was still their best chance. Not only would there probably be a ship there, but if the party cleared it out, there would be more room and more provisions for the Rebels that remained. She doubted whatever ship they found would be big enough to fit them all.

The group took no speeder with them this time. They were hoping to take a ship out, and then they would have had to leave the speeder in a place it could easily be hijacked. Before they got over the last ridge before the trenches, Gaarkhan stopped the group. He had just remembered the datachip Talcon had given him before the last battle. He suggested that maybe there was a secondary entrance she had logged; going through the front would be suicide.

“Here.” Shyla extended him the handheld topographical unit she was carrying. When Gaarkhan plugged it in, however, there was very little of use there. The most prominent file showed the coordinates of the namesake planet of the Ison system. Apparently, there was a village named Haven in the mountains, run by someone named Benex. There was nothing about the layout of Echo Base, though. Jyn, Vinto, and Gaarkhan had only been there for the final assault, and in the chaos there hadn’t been time to learn the floorplan. Shyla had been posted there longer.

“There’s a back door for supply deliveries,” she said, “but, if you look at the topography here, it seems like those mountain tunnels lead up into the base too. I think that was the emergency escape route.”

“Other things live in those tunnels, right?” Jyn asked.

Gaarkhan agreed, but remarked that the group might not even run into anything. And the Imperials would be far less likely to notice them coming.

“Kriff that,” said Vinto. “I’m not fighting a wampa.”

Shyla looked between Gaarkhan and Vinto, but Jyn spoke up. “He has a point. Besides, anyone we run into across the trenches is one less person to fight inside the base itself.”

“Alright…across the battlefield, then?”

Gaarkhan grumbled his disappointment, but he didn’t resist.

The battlefield was quiet. At first, Jyn thought the Imperials had set up another ambush, but they made it most of the way across without anyone attacking them. Just when she was beginning to let her guard down, she thought she heard a whirring noise. “Hey, listen. You guys hear that?”

“Yep,” Vinto said immediately. His antenna had picked up the vibrations through the air, too.

Gaarkhan hummed a _what?_ but after a moment of concentration, Shyla nodded. “Yeah. Everyone get under those speeders. Hustle.”

There was no telling how long they waited, pressed as firmly between the snow and the even colder metal as they could get. Eventually, they saw the bottom of a probe droid’s legs float by. Even then, they waited just as long before deeming it safe to come out. Shyla signalled at them to move slowly. As Gaarkhan grabbed the edge of the speeder to help him stand up, he felt something in the cockpit. Upon inspection, it turned out to be a medpac. He walked over to show it to the group, not trusting himself to talk quietly. Vinto gave him a thumbs-up. Jyn gave him two.

After making another thorough check for probe droids, the group had to enter the trenches. According to Shyla, the Rebels had dug them right from the back door so that reinforcements and battlefield equipment didn’t have to be run across the open field to reach the soldiers already there.

Jyn moved ahead of the rest. Her armour still clicked when she moved far too much for her liking, but Shyla had informed her that that wouldn’t go away anytime soon. Now that she paid attention to it, Jyn realized it was constant when Shyla moved too. “It’s not locked,” she reported, frowning at the door.

Gaarkhan muttered that they should have gone through the mountains.

“Maybe the Imps don’t know about it,” Shyla suggested. “They probably don’t use our old trenches much.”

Vinto breathed in sharply. They were far too close to enemy territory to be talking so openly. “Just open it,” he hissed.

Jyn reached for the switch, but Shyla stopped her. “You stay in back. Gaarkhan and I can take the hits.”

In response, Gaarkhan unslung the axe from his back. Shyla drew her sword and Jyn pulled her new blaster out. She twirled it around her finger and gave Vinto an excited grin. He nodded in answer and drew his own weapon.

“Ready,” said Shyla, glancing over her shoulder to make sure everyone was in position. She hit the switch. “We’re going in.”


End file.
